Lose a Nuke, Lose Your Job

The Air Force today is expected to send a signal: losing nukes is a very, very bad thing. A number of officers deemed responsible for a so-called "Bent Spear" incident will be fired (just as a refresher, the mishap took place last month when a B-52 mistakenly loaded with five nuclear warheads took a flight across the United States). As several news outlets, including the New York Times, are reporting:

The Air Force is planning to fire at least five officers for violations of nuclear security rules that allowed armed missiles to be mistakenly loaded on a B-52 bomber and flown over the central part of the United States, officials said Thursday.

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mike Mullen, are to be briefed Friday on the disciplinary plan and other results of an Air Force investigation of the flight, which took place on Aug. 30.

The B-52 flew from Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota to Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana with six nuclear-tipped cruise missiles mounted under one wing. A total of 36 hours passed before the missiles were properly secured, officials have said.

Mr. Gates said Thursday that officials wanted to reduce the chances of another such episode “to the lowest level humanly possible.” But it “would be silly” to promise it will not happen again, he said at a news conference with Admiral Mullen.

As this Washington Post story noted, the Air Force — prior to the nuke incident becoming public — didn’t seem to think it was of major public concern. Accountability is good, but it will be interesting to see if the Pentagon now takes steps to ensure there isn’t a similar incident elsewhere.